The Nephrotic Syndrome Saga

Hi there,

I pretty much left this blog without any new posts for like weeks already. The main excuse that I and every other bloggers will say is busy life and work, and it is quite true for me. On top of that I also had been diagnosed with some medical condition that does not sounds pretty. Yeah it is nephrotic syndrome.

This story actually goes way back 10years ( I was 14) ago where I was diagnosed with the same thing. Okay I will try to write something about this syndrome, but please remember that I am an engineer, not an MD or a nephrologist, so my terms or explanation might not be as accurate or might even be misleading. But I will try to write about this thing as how I understand it(as an engineer). The syndrome is a kidney disorder where the kidney leak, 'spills' out a large amount of protein into your urine, they call this proteinuria. sometimes trace of blood could also be found (hematuria). Under normal condition these 2 things should not be leaking into your urine because it is the kidney's job to filter them.

The tricky thing about this syndrome is, there are gajillions of reasons that could cause it, it could be diabetes (which I dont have) to anything including idiopathic. Idiopathic is something when your doctor tells you, "I dont fucking know what caused it". I think the word is derived from something like an idiot doctor in greek. Thats why it has IDIO as its first 4 words.

So what happens when your blood is lacking of protein? your blood loses its ability to hold water, and the body will retain the water instead of being brought to kidney to turn into urine. That is why some people who met me in last couple of months will notice that my face was puffy and my body was quite plump. I was bloated like a balloon and i gained 8kgs, I was at 78kg! The weight change happened so fast in about 1 week, that my body could hardly cope with it. My legs muscle ached so bad and the tendons were even worse.

So yeah, after 10 years of remission, I had a relapse like early Oct, and i could see all the symptoms building up. One more symptom of this syndrome is that due to the excessive protein in your urine, your urine will be very foamy and frothy (like beer froth). I was quite freaked out at that time, so I went back to Malaysia to see some doctors at HTAR, the nearest general hospital from my place. However, by the time I saw thedoctors, I was actually magically recovering without using any medications. So, I went back to Singapore and work like usual till end of November.

Not so lucky this time, the symptoms came back on early Dec, so this time I've decided to go to KPJ Shah Alam, because the experience I had with the general hospital was really frustrating(this will require another post). After some blood and urine tests, my the nephrologist and I decided that we should try prednisolone (its actually a type of steroids) for like 2 weeks and if I dont respond to the meds, I will have to go through renal biopsy to check whats really going on with my kidney.

Luckily, I responded very well to prednisolone and the protein in my urine has been negative for almost 2 weeks now. Since, prednisolone is a kind of steroids, there will be a few unwanted side effect out of this medication and I will have to gradually reduce the amount of medication I'm taking. So, dont be surprised if you see me and I look like a drug junkie on withdrawal. A lot of people in the internet gave bad reviews of how this medication effect their daily life. But hey, my kidneys are getting better, and it could be worse =)

There are a lot of things that I could write about the things I'm going through with this thing but I dont wanna write too much as it will get very boring and I am not really a good writer. So perhaps in another post.

Cheers!
-Farouk-